Cataract surgery treatments are among, if not, the most common ophthalmic procedures in the entire world. Cataract surgery post treatment symptoms and complications are often due to the opacification of the posterior lens and capsule. Opacification is a common reoccurring complication of many current cataract surgery procedures. As a result, new methods of treatment that minimize or reduce risks associated are particularly desirable.
New improved posterior capsulotomy cutting tools such as, knives, heating tools to remove the tissue and laser apparatus, types of intraocular lenses, and active agent solutions continue to be developed and described in recent references to address the need of improved ocular procedures. For example:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,894 titled “Posterior Capsulotomy Knife,” describes a knife that seeks to minimize or eliminate vitreous loss during the capsulotomy procedure by inflicting a minimal wound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,879 titled “Posterior Chamber Intraocular Lens,” describes an Intraocular Lens that may be placed in the posterior capsule. The new Lens which may be safely perforated with a laser beam transversely to a line of tension formed by the projection, causing the posterior capsule to tear and form an opening to eliminate any cloudiness of the posterior capsule from behind the optic. The perforation being safe in part due to the Lens having a pair of rearward projections, each located radially outwardly of opposite peripheral portions of the optica and cooperating to produce a similar tension and spacing effect.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,985,405 titled “Treatment and Method for Preventing Posterior Capsular Opacification by Selectively Inducing Detachment and/or Death of Lens Epithelial Cells,” describes a treatment solution used to prevent posterior capsular opacification that can applied or introduced into the lens capsular bag before, during, or after cataract surgery.
Pertaining to the implementation of the present invention, United States Patent Application No. 2011/0118609 titled “Imaging Surgical Target Tissue by Nonlinear Scanning” describes an example of a system for laser surgery based on imaging a target tissue by nonlinear scanning that may be used to implement some parts of the present invention as described in the description section of the present application.
Moreover, opacification of the posterior lens and capsule, (also called Secondary Cataract for the symptoms it produces), is a complication that can generally occur after the insertion of an intraocular lens in patients undergoing cataract surgery with an incidence varying from 10% to 50% of patients. It is manifested by one or more symptoms of; gradual decrease in vision, blurred vision, decrease of visual acuity, ghost imaging, and glare.
Bearing in mind the debilitating symptoms and the fact that all currently established cataract ophthalmic treatments/procedures can include subsequent susceptibility to opacification of the posterior capsule and lens, the treatment of opacification using a method where associated risks are significant reduced becomes a goal of utmost importance for both physicians and patients alike. Presented in the following sections, new methods of treating opacification capable of significantly reducing particular risks and symptoms are the subject matter of the present invention.